HARDWICK — Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union (OSSU) has increased its local food purchases from 5% in 2021–22 to 17% in 2023–24, according to Green Mountain Farm-to-School, a nonprofit organization based in Newport. As a result, it will receive $13,097 from the Vermont Agency of Education’s Local Foods Incentive grant program.
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Valerie Hussey, food service director for OSSU, explains why local sourcing matters: “We want to serve the freshest foods we can to our students. We also want to support local farmers and businesses as they support our schools. Local foods come with a higher cost, but the grant helps offset that. It’s good for communities, good for kids — less processed, fewer added ingredients, just fresh local food.”
The grant has allowed OSSU to transform its approach to food purchasing. “We pushed this year to increase [our] local food budgets using previous grant funds,” Hussey said. “Schools aren’t programmed to spend more, but we felt more confident with the promise of the grant. . . . The bottom line is health.”
OSSU reached this percentage by creating a diverse local purchasing plan to meet its menu needs. It sources 80% of its beef from local farms like Andersonville Farm in West Glover. It is using flour from Nitty Gritty Grains of Charlotte to make fresh pizza dough, and ready-to-use fresh produce from Just Cut of Hardwick to cut down on staff labor time. Students are enjoying crisp apples from Sunrise Orchards of Cornwall, even into the spring.
OSSU’s partnership with Green Mountain Farm-to-School aided in its success. The nonprofit’s food hub program, Green Mountain Farm Direct, facilitates the sale of local food from farms to institutions and businesses. Hussey describes the convenience of partnering with a food hub: “They bring smaller farmers together in one hub. Instead of researching vendors or making 10 purchase orders a week, we place one order and get food from multiple local farms delivered to us.” Through Farm Direct, OSSU schools sourced fresh produce from Pete’s Greens of Craftsbury, handmade pasta from Trenchers Farmhouse of Lyndonville, and fresh feta cheese from Sweet Rowen of West Glover.
The impact on students has been noticeable. “You cannot replace a fresh local tomato with something that’s traveled across the country,” Hussey noted. “Kids love having more to choose from: more color, more variety. They’re eating roasted sweet potatoes and kale and making connections to where their food comes from.”
Working in the Northeast Kingdom presents challenges, says Hussey. “We don’t have the population or as many local resources,” she explained. “We’re more dependent on [distributors], budgets are tight, and schools are small. But we’ve had buy-in from our district — it’s a team effort. If local businesses aren’t supported, we can’t survive.”
For other schools looking to increase local sourcing, Hussey offers this advice: “Pick a few Vermont staples — maple, beef, apples — and build from there. Find resources through food hubs or local vendors. When things go wrong, lean on the relationships you’ve built.”
OSSU’s accomplishment demonstrates how rural school districts can incorporate local foods into their meal programs through strategic partnerships, state support and a commitment to student health and community sustainability. Some initial tallying shows that OSSU’s local purchasing surpassed 25% in 2024–25, with no plans of slowing down.
